I use symbols such as mannequins, masks, dangling limbs and puppet strings as my visual ‘shorthand’ for the forces, which frustrate us all.

I have a problem with the idea of doing things the same way every time, I want to do it differently, I want to change it, I want to change the nose, the ears...It can take up to two years to finish a painting.

The space I work in really has very minimal depth, I don’t think I paint in 3 dimensions, I paint flat which is very much an original Cubist way of thinking.

I don’t paint any dreams I have; I sort of mistrust that, because that has a light quality very different than paint.

I tell myself stories all the time, I usually don’t have words out loud, mentally the conversation is with my figures and its always stories.

The person way up above in my paintings is the sort of organizer of the people below them.

I will paint on some and remove them, sand them away, redraw them if they’re not relating and I have to keep re-doing this until somehow they do have meaning to me.